SHIFTING MINDS AWARD
C21 Canada, an association of school leaders from across the country, recognized Connected North
with their 2023 Shiing Minds Award at their CEO Academy summit held at Toronto Metropolitan
University in May 2023. Program founder Willa Black and Director of Innovation Michael Furdyk were
there to accept the award and share a few remarks with the school district leaders.
CONNECTED NORTH - PARALLEL PROGRAMMING
CREATE TO LEARN
Established out of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Create To
Learn continues to grow. The platform provides 65 First Nations,
Métis and Inuit artists and media makers a way to share their
digital skills and traditional knowledge with youth across Canada
for free.
During the 2022-23 school year, there were 353 Create to Learn
skill development videos freely available online for students to
access. We also continue to work with Anishinaabe educator
Christine M'lot to develop additional curriculum-aligned lesson
plans to complement the resource.
FUTURE PATHWAYS
Future Pathways: Fireside Chats and the Future Pathways: Navigator,
supported by the RBC Foundation, are other examples of the expansion of
Connected North programming. Fireside Chats is a video series featuring
Indigenous Role Models from a variety of careers speaking about their
journeys. There are now over 400 interviews available to view. New in
2022-2023, the website now features lesson plans for teachers to be able to
easily integrate this content into their classrooms.
The Future Pathways: Navigator is a website for any student interested in
further education to learn more about what to expect directly from other
students. Itʼs a collection of advice, resources, free apps, and videos from
Northern students. In this school year, we served over 18,500 unique visitors to the site, a 140%
increase from the same period last year.
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